<p>What can we say about the situation in our country that hasn't already been said? What ideology do we possess that hasn't already made its way across the pages of our history books? There is a very popular video making its way around youtube and facebook speaking of our need to understand our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=544500462260590"><u>history</u>.</a> (The video's laughable use of euphemisms over regicide, genocide, and executions is so vulgar it verges on pornography.) The video tells the story of the sacking of Ayudhya in an attempt to say that the divisions we have today are similar to the rifts that occurred back then, divisions which ultimately led to the early Kingdom's downfall.</p> <p></p>

<p>The dust has firmly settled and the dye is fully cast. It has been three years since the eventful months of April and May. The barricades, the speeches, the bloodshed and violence seems like distant memories to some, fresh and painful ones for others. But after three years the only perpetrators that are behind bars are red shirt activists and lèse majesté violators.</p>

<p dir="ltr" id="internal-source-marker_0.4555932275107084">In his introduction to his wonderful Age of Reason Thomas Paine implores that the reader give his work the same accordance he has given “every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine.” It was undoubtedly important to Thomas Paine considering he was writing about religion in a time where apostasy was still considered a grave offense. While the writing was published at the tail end of the European Enlightenment and at the height of the French Revolution, he still felt the need to highlight the necessity of liberty and differences of opinion.</p>

<p>The video shows smoke rising from a burning village. Men, women and children are shown escaping from the ordeal. The military are present but do nothing as the people are assaulted by a variety of projectiles. An on-looking woman eggs on the violence shouting, “Kill them, Kill them!”</p> <p>These are the images that are coming out of Myanmar as of the time of this writing. What was initially dismissed as a local and isolated conflict has slowly revealed itself as increasingly sectarian and religious in nature. Not that sectarian violence is anything new in the country formerly known as Burma. It was one of the underlying themes of George Orwell’s <em>Burmese Days</em> back in 1934.</p>